Pitt Concludes Ohio State Invitational with Three New School Records

Thursday, November 18

Columbus, OH

Pitt

Ohio State Invitational

Pitt Concludes Ohio State Invitational with Three New School Records

11/21/2021 11:14:00 AM | Swimming & Diving

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COLUMBUS, Ohio —Pitt swimming and diving concluded the Ohio State Invitational on Saturday by setting three school records and earning 17 NCAA qualifying cuts - 12 swimming and 5 diving, at one of college swimming's most competitive mid-season meets. There were over 80 individual personal bests achieved throughout the meet.

Sophomore swimmer Marcin Goraj highlighted Pitt's success breaking Pitt's 200 Backstroke record twice in one day. The Krakow, Poland native broke Bence Szucsik's 2017 time of 1:44.17 with a 1:43.81 in the preliminaries. However, Goraj broke his own record only a few hours later with a time of 1:42.92 in the finals.

Joining Goraj in Pitt history was senior Cooper Van der Laan, who erased his own record time in the 100 Breaststroke, 51.52, set at the 2021 ACC Championships with a 51.42. Van der Laan would continue to win the 100 Breast championship with the fastest time of the meet.

Also writing their names in the Pitt record book was the Women's 200 Medley Relay A consisting of Kayla Graham, Tatum Detwiler, Sophie Yendell, and Kate Fuhrmann. Their final time of 1:39.13 topped the 2018 record of 1:39.29 set by Shan Hochkeppel, Lina Rathsack, Sam Howe, and Rachel Brown.

"I am extremely proud of the kids," head coach John Hargis said. "Our mantra throughout the year is to be better than you were the day before and we did exactly that. We walked out of there with three school records and 12 NCAA divisional cuts with Cooper being guaranteed with an A cut. I was most proud on Saturday morning after the kids had very little sleep from the night before and leaving the hotel at 6 a.m., but we were the best team there that session from a performance and energy standpoint. They took the adversity they were given, used it to their advantage, and performed at a very high level which ultimately shows the grit and character that our team has."

"We saw the confidence that I wanted to see in the platform," said head diving coach Katie Kasprzak. "I think it is a great experience to dive against this caliber of competition. We learned a lot of lessons that we will take home and work on, so we are ready for ACCs."

Throughout the weekend, there were consistently at least two Pitt men in the Top 20 of the diving events. Senior Amy Read continued her season streak of earning at least one NCAA Zone Cut per meet with a 278.30 qualifying score on platform.

The men's team finished in sixth place overall with 1219 points, just shy of SEC powerhouse, Kentucky, by three points, while the women tallied 834 points and finished seventh.

NCAA SWIMMING CUTS:
A – Cooper Van der Laan (100 Breast, 51.42)
B – Jerry Chen (100 Breast, 53.43)
B - Flynn Crisci – (100 Breast, 53.45)
B – Daisy Anderson (400 IM, 4:16.52)
B – Sarah-Helen Shepherd (400 IM, 4:16.88)
B - Marcin Goraj (100 Back, 46.99)
B - Krzysztof Radziszewski (100 Back, 47.59)
B - Cooper Van der Laan (200 Breast, 1:53.23)
B - Jerry Chen (200 Breast, 1:58.32)
B - Javier Zorzano (200 Breast, 1:58.33)
B - Marcin Goraj (200 Back, 1:42.92)
B – Adam Mahler (200 Fly, 1:45.96)

NCAA DIVING ZONE CUTS:
Claire McDaniels (280.10, 3M)
Amy Read (278.30 Platform)
Claire McDaniels (242.15, Platform)
Serena Buchwald (231.40, Platform)
Cameron Cash (307.55, Platform)